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We Are As Gods: Back to the Land in the 1970s on the Quest for a New America
At the dawn of the 1970s, waves of hopeful idealists abandoned the city and headed for the country, convinced that a better life awaited. They were full of dreams, mostly lacking in practical skills, and soon utterly out of money. But they knew paradise when they saw it.
When Loraine, Craig, Pancake, Hershe, and a dozen of their friends came into possession of 116 acres in Vermont, they had big to grow their own food, build their own shelter, and create an enlightened community. They had little idea that at the same moment, all over the country, a million other young people were making the same move -- back to the land.
We Are As Gods follows the Myrtle Hill commune as its members enjoy a euphoric Free Love summer. Nearby, a fledgling organic farm sets to work with horses, and a couple -- the author's parents -- attempts to build a geodesic dome. Yet Myrtle Hill's summer ends in panic as they rush to build shelter while they struggle to reconcile their ideals with the somber realities of physical hardship and shifting priorities -- especially when one member goes dangerously rogue.
Kate Daloz has written a meticulously researched testament to the dreams of a generation disillusioned by their parents' lifestyles, scarred by the Vietnam War, and yearning for rural peace. Shaping everything from our eating habits to the Internet, the 1970s Back-to-the-Land movement is one of the most influential yet least understood periods in recent history. We Are As Gods sheds light on one generation's determination to change their own lives and, in the process, to change the world.
When Loraine, Craig, Pancake, Hershe, and a dozen of their friends came into possession of 116 acres in Vermont, they had big to grow their own food, build their own shelter, and create an enlightened community. They had little idea that at the same moment, all over the country, a million other young people were making the same move -- back to the land.
We Are As Gods follows the Myrtle Hill commune as its members enjoy a euphoric Free Love summer. Nearby, a fledgling organic farm sets to work with horses, and a couple -- the author's parents -- attempts to build a geodesic dome. Yet Myrtle Hill's summer ends in panic as they rush to build shelter while they struggle to reconcile their ideals with the somber realities of physical hardship and shifting priorities -- especially when one member goes dangerously rogue.
Kate Daloz has written a meticulously researched testament to the dreams of a generation disillusioned by their parents' lifestyles, scarred by the Vietnam War, and yearning for rural peace. Shaping everything from our eating habits to the Internet, the 1970s Back-to-the-Land movement is one of the most influential yet least understood periods in recent history. We Are As Gods sheds light on one generation's determination to change their own lives and, in the process, to change the world.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published April 26, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews
May 16, 2023
05/2017
Very interesting book about the Back to the Land movement in early 1970s America. I loved how it blended personal tales with a history of communes. This world is significant to me because, like the author, I was born in this movement. It is not due to Mainer ancestry that I was born in mid coast Maine (in the mid 1970s). I was told my parents were too cool to be commune people though, just Back to the Landers.
Very interesting book about the Back to the Land movement in early 1970s America. I loved how it blended personal tales with a history of communes. This world is significant to me because, like the author, I was born in this movement. It is not due to Mainer ancestry that I was born in mid coast Maine (in the mid 1970s). I was told my parents were too cool to be commune people though, just Back to the Landers.
May 3, 2016
Kate Daloz's "We Are As Gods: Back to the Land in the 1970s on the Quest for a New America" is an interesting look at the communal living movement of the 1970's. The characters are interesting; it is well-researched and it flows well.
It is interesting to read about the communal living movement. Many people nowadays think of pot and bell bottoms when they think of the counterculture movement of the seventies, they do not realize what other ideals were also embraced during the movement, so books such as this one are useful for educational purposes as well.
I also find it interesting to read about what other members of my parents' generation believed as well. My parents were the typical, boring kids of Midwest rural America during this time period; but some of the ideas embraced by other young people during this period does explain one of my aunts, who still embraces many of these ideas.
For the quality of writing and research, I have to rate this book about 4.7-4.8. I also enjoy that the book was a realistic depiction of the times, and not an idealized narrative. I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in the 1970s. I obtained my copy of this book from Goodreads and I appreciate the opportunity to read and review it.
It is interesting to read about the communal living movement. Many people nowadays think of pot and bell bottoms when they think of the counterculture movement of the seventies, they do not realize what other ideals were also embraced during the movement, so books such as this one are useful for educational purposes as well.
I also find it interesting to read about what other members of my parents' generation believed as well. My parents were the typical, boring kids of Midwest rural America during this time period; but some of the ideas embraced by other young people during this period does explain one of my aunts, who still embraces many of these ideas.
For the quality of writing and research, I have to rate this book about 4.7-4.8. I also enjoy that the book was a realistic depiction of the times, and not an idealized narrative. I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in the 1970s. I obtained my copy of this book from Goodreads and I appreciate the opportunity to read and review it.
August 17, 2016
I enjoyed this well researched and written book . The author as a child lived next door to a small Northeast Kingdom VT commune . She and her parents, former Peace Corp volunteers, were friends with them. Told as a story that spanned many years about the goings on with the backdrop of back to earth movement of the time.
yes and even Bernie Sanders makes an appearance....
Library Journal Review http://reviews.libraryjournal.com/201...
I enjoy these little slices of life from this time period. One from a few years later I enjoyed
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...
yes and even Bernie Sanders makes an appearance....
Library Journal Review http://reviews.libraryjournal.com/201...
I enjoy these little slices of life from this time period. One from a few years later I enjoyed
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...
July 19, 2016
We Are As Gods follows the creation of several communes in Vermont in the early 1970s and the people who lived there. Kate Daloz, the daughter of two of the subjects in the book, writes with fondness and admiration of the people and the Back to the Land counterculture.
It was an intriguing read especially considering my own parents' recollections of being hippies, and I felt my own admiration of the people grow through Daloz' words. Towards the end, I was really hoping for a "Where Are They Now" section, and sure enough, the last few pages included that.
It was an intriguing read especially considering my own parents' recollections of being hippies, and I felt my own admiration of the people grow through Daloz' words. Towards the end, I was really hoping for a "Where Are They Now" section, and sure enough, the last few pages included that.
January 15, 2017
Daloz tells the story of one back-to-the-land Vermont commune of the 1970s which can probably stand in for many similar social experiments. Daloz (born mid 1970s) presents the story of her childhood at “Myrtle Hill” (the pseudonym she chooses for her childhood home), beginning with the story of the years before her birth when the commune was founded. She relies on interviews with her parents and their old commune friends and, sometimes, as commune life goes, former friends.
The author does a great job of walking us through communal experiments of the late 1960s, and tracing how they evolved into the back to the land movement nationally, and in Vermont specifically, in the early 1970s.
For example, early hippy cuisine emphasized scrounging and living on the cheap – Wonder Bread and peanut butter living - but just a few years into the 1970s, as people actually did return to the land, the culinary gestalt shifted toward organic and natural foods. Looking backwards, I can totally see that. Hippies of 1967 were not hippies of 1973 - a lot changed in a few years.
But, the primary method of the book is to knit together personal reminiscences of participants, and it is sometimes difficult to follow precisely who is speaking or about which of the several communes they are speaking. The reader must simply give way to the flood of memories and soak in the feeling.
On the commune itself there really was a moment of “free love” resulting in at least one child whose mother carefully insured that neither she nor any of the men in the commune could be certain who the child’s father was. But that was the early 1970s, and apparently not a choice that was normative among the women of Myrtle Hill.
The author is astute in her many observations of how relatively privileged middle-class young adults sought out primitive living and even poverty, and how, in the Vermont case, neighbors who had more recent memories of poverty viewed them with disdain. Yet, at the same time these rural neighbors were quick to lend a hand. The economy of rural mutual assistance overcame the cultural differences and enabled survival in the early years.
The communes became more conventional too as middle-class values initially rejected were rediscovered a few years later.
“…perhaps privacy – or at least peace and quiet – wasn’t as expendable as communal groups had generally assumed. It was a philosophical shift then starting to creep through the wider counterculture. Doors: not so oppressively bourgeois after all.” (p. 245)
Then also, already after just a few years on the land, presumably circa 1973, women were becoming much more conscious of the gendered nature of work. Some felt that they had only escaped their bourgeois background to unconsciously recreate it… and began to advocate for change
“From the commune’s first season, Loraine had noticed that the men considered their workday over at dinnertime while the women’s continued until they fell into bed exhausted. But it wasn’t until that third year, when Summer began talking about women’s lib, that Loraine began to think about this pattern in political terms. That summer, the Whole Earth Catalog printed an essay called “Women in Communes” that described Myrtle Hill to a T.” (p. 248)
“To encourage this kind of mutual growth, some groups instituted job rotations specifically designed to challenge gendered patterns. At one of these, the women were just heading out to the fields when a man on his first kitchen shift came running after them, panicked: “Hey, look, you can’t leave all the kids here. I’ve gotta cook!” The women just looked at each other and laughed.” (p. 250)
By the late 1970s at Myrtle Hill it seems that people were living in their own houses on shared land, but deep tensions in the vision of what constituted the good life on the land ultimately ripped the commune apart. One member’s fascination with guns and decision to put marijuana into the mix of economic activities, just as the Reagan administration ramped up drug enforcement, was the ultimate death of Myrtle Hill.
The unwinding makes for a dramatic and interesting conclusion.
The author does a great job of walking us through communal experiments of the late 1960s, and tracing how they evolved into the back to the land movement nationally, and in Vermont specifically, in the early 1970s.
For example, early hippy cuisine emphasized scrounging and living on the cheap – Wonder Bread and peanut butter living - but just a few years into the 1970s, as people actually did return to the land, the culinary gestalt shifted toward organic and natural foods. Looking backwards, I can totally see that. Hippies of 1967 were not hippies of 1973 - a lot changed in a few years.
But, the primary method of the book is to knit together personal reminiscences of participants, and it is sometimes difficult to follow precisely who is speaking or about which of the several communes they are speaking. The reader must simply give way to the flood of memories and soak in the feeling.
On the commune itself there really was a moment of “free love” resulting in at least one child whose mother carefully insured that neither she nor any of the men in the commune could be certain who the child’s father was. But that was the early 1970s, and apparently not a choice that was normative among the women of Myrtle Hill.
The author is astute in her many observations of how relatively privileged middle-class young adults sought out primitive living and even poverty, and how, in the Vermont case, neighbors who had more recent memories of poverty viewed them with disdain. Yet, at the same time these rural neighbors were quick to lend a hand. The economy of rural mutual assistance overcame the cultural differences and enabled survival in the early years.
The communes became more conventional too as middle-class values initially rejected were rediscovered a few years later.
“…perhaps privacy – or at least peace and quiet – wasn’t as expendable as communal groups had generally assumed. It was a philosophical shift then starting to creep through the wider counterculture. Doors: not so oppressively bourgeois after all.” (p. 245)
Then also, already after just a few years on the land, presumably circa 1973, women were becoming much more conscious of the gendered nature of work. Some felt that they had only escaped their bourgeois background to unconsciously recreate it… and began to advocate for change
“From the commune’s first season, Loraine had noticed that the men considered their workday over at dinnertime while the women’s continued until they fell into bed exhausted. But it wasn’t until that third year, when Summer began talking about women’s lib, that Loraine began to think about this pattern in political terms. That summer, the Whole Earth Catalog printed an essay called “Women in Communes” that described Myrtle Hill to a T.” (p. 248)
“To encourage this kind of mutual growth, some groups instituted job rotations specifically designed to challenge gendered patterns. At one of these, the women were just heading out to the fields when a man on his first kitchen shift came running after them, panicked: “Hey, look, you can’t leave all the kids here. I’ve gotta cook!” The women just looked at each other and laughed.” (p. 250)
By the late 1970s at Myrtle Hill it seems that people were living in their own houses on shared land, but deep tensions in the vision of what constituted the good life on the land ultimately ripped the commune apart. One member’s fascination with guns and decision to put marijuana into the mix of economic activities, just as the Reagan administration ramped up drug enforcement, was the ultimate death of Myrtle Hill.
The unwinding makes for a dramatic and interesting conclusion.
May 26, 2024
2.5 stars
DNF.
I tried so hard to get through this book, but I only made it about halfway before closing it for good. The pointless backstories of each and every character of the commune, slow build up the community itself, minor tribulations that are solved within the chapter… they all drag the story on while leading to no where so it feels as though I’ve made no progress. I love hippies, living off the land, and saying “fuck the government,” but this book just wasn’t doing it for me.
DNF.
I tried so hard to get through this book, but I only made it about halfway before closing it for good. The pointless backstories of each and every character of the commune, slow build up the community itself, minor tribulations that are solved within the chapter… they all drag the story on while leading to no where so it feels as though I’ve made no progress. I love hippies, living off the land, and saying “fuck the government,” but this book just wasn’t doing it for me.
January 14, 2018
We Are as Gods is a group portrait of one generation’s dreams and delusions of getting “back to the land.” Karen Daloz, who grew up in a geodesic dome that her parents built on a Vermont hill and who knew the hippies from the neighborhood commune, plots a clear path through the rise and fall of the communards, taking in the west coast, Colorado’s famous Drop City, and many other cobbled-together utopias in Tennessee and New England. She never loses sight of the chief wonder of the era: that so many people thought so much was possible, that society could be reinvented, even if from the margins at first. The hippies were united by their overconfidence, says Daloz.
Don’t know how to build a house, plant a garden, raise livestock? Just start. Order a book reviewed in The Whole Earth Catalog (from which she gets her book’s title), talk to another hippie, found a commune, get high, try communal decision making and free love, get high, leave, come back. It’s a bold, messy experiment.
From a crowded cast of characters, Daloz has written a page turner.
Don’t know how to build a house, plant a garden, raise livestock? Just start. Order a book reviewed in The Whole Earth Catalog (from which she gets her book’s title), talk to another hippie, found a commune, get high, try communal decision making and free love, get high, leave, come back. It’s a bold, messy experiment.
From a crowded cast of characters, Daloz has written a page turner.
December 6, 2021
An intriguing look at another tumultuous era -- a time when people in North America were simultaneously fiercely optimistic about the future and filled with existential dread. That's what drew me to this book: a desire to connect with the experiences of others who've lived through times when everything seemed to be unraveling -- and who choose to respond in creative ways.
July 5, 2016
I loved this book completely! Kate did a wonderful job portraying both a historical movement and telling a richly detailed true story involving memorable characters. I found myself laying down the book to reflect more about all the social and political issues she raised about this time, my own childhood in the NEK. I admit it was slightly surreal to recognize people and places from my childhood with now an adult perspective. Experiences that I had on the fringes of the "back to the land" movement are some of my favorite memories and are slightly idealistically painted from a child's perspective. The realities portrayed in the book are so honest and truly give a complete picture. I also see how much this childhood shaped my adulthood, and I feel a certain pride for how these people shaped policies, social programs, education and communities in the NEK and beyond. It is quite the legacy. I am recommending this book to everyone!
September 21, 2016
I received this book from Goodreads First Reads in exchange for an honest review...
I had high, high hopes for this book. Reading the description of it interested me greatly. Yet, just getting through the introduction was a pain in the rear end. The following chapters didn't enlighten my disgruntled mood either. By the time I reached the half-way point of this book, I gave up all hope. It became a lost cause for me.
It could be the author's writing style, the way the details and information was explained, the boring plot line, or lack of characters, that made me strongly dislike this book. Either way, the entire book felt like a failure. It was dull and dragged on endlessly, with no hope of going towards the light at the end of the tunnel. It was a huge disappointment for me.
I had high, high hopes for this book. Reading the description of it interested me greatly. Yet, just getting through the introduction was a pain in the rear end. The following chapters didn't enlighten my disgruntled mood either. By the time I reached the half-way point of this book, I gave up all hope. It became a lost cause for me.
It could be the author's writing style, the way the details and information was explained, the boring plot line, or lack of characters, that made me strongly dislike this book. Either way, the entire book felt like a failure. It was dull and dragged on endlessly, with no hope of going towards the light at the end of the tunnel. It was a huge disappointment for me.
November 16, 2018
4.5 stars
As someone who was born and raised in Vermont, learning about a particular period in my state's history is what originally drew me in, but I thoroughly enjoyed not only the focus on the Back to the Land movement in Vermont but also across America. I kept reading about so many interesting things that I would pause my reading to go look up more online. I came to appreciate the positive effects this movement had along with its, sometimes ugly, pitfalls. The only drawback for me was that sometimes the time jumps in the book made it confusing to follow what the Back to the Landers were doing at a particular time versus when we last heard from them. Overall though, an excellent read.
As someone who was born and raised in Vermont, learning about a particular period in my state's history is what originally drew me in, but I thoroughly enjoyed not only the focus on the Back to the Land movement in Vermont but also across America. I kept reading about so many interesting things that I would pause my reading to go look up more online. I came to appreciate the positive effects this movement had along with its, sometimes ugly, pitfalls. The only drawback for me was that sometimes the time jumps in the book made it confusing to follow what the Back to the Landers were doing at a particular time versus when we last heard from them. Overall though, an excellent read.
June 14, 2016
One of the best books i've read in a very long time. A great writer with a deft way of weaving personal stories, U.S. history, and sociology. What a fascinating time in this country! So interesting & influential. I was incredibly drawn into the lives of these people (and how their bravery & crazy audacity has impacted my life big time).
I'll be loaning or gifting this one to a lot of people...including the latest generation to go back to the land (the 30-somethings up in Oregon).
I'll be loaning or gifting this one to a lot of people...including the latest generation to go back to the land (the 30-somethings up in Oregon).
April 27, 2016
It's not that there was any problem with the book, rather it just didn't tell the story that I thought it would.
http://fedpeaches.blogspot.com/2016/0...
http://fedpeaches.blogspot.com/2016/0...
June 13, 2018
This is a fascinating tale of the back-to-the-land movement of the late 60s/early 70s. At one time there were hundreds of hippie communes across the country, many of them in California, Vermont, and the Southwest. By the mid-80s the vast majority of them were gone (The Farm lives on, though with a fraction of its former population). This book largely describes the communes of Vermont, specifically the Myrtle Hill Farm collective, Entropy Acres (run by two couples) and the author's own parents' farm. Most of the book is about Myrtle Hill, as the others are not necessarily communes although they fall under the back-to-the-land hippie movement umbrella.
"Voluntary peasants" is how they were famously described. To their parents, who lived through the deprivations of World War II and the Depression, the choice to live without running water or electricity was mystifying. Most of the communards were white, middle-class, and many were college-educated. Rejecting their parents' values, and the nuclear family, not to mention the Vietnam War, the back-to-the-landers sought a new way of life that the predicted would be embraced by everyone, out of necessity due to post-apocalyptic future, or from a sense of enlightenment. But the fact remains that the majority of them didn't even embrace it for an entire decade, much less the rest of their lives.
I can't say I blame those who bailed on the experiment. Few communes were self-sustaining; most suffered from poverty and many were forced to file Welfare claims to avoid starvation. And especially when the free love philosophy led to the inevitable children being born. It's one thing for adults to choose to live in poverty but when children are expected to do the same, it's a lot harder to justify. The rejection of the nuclear family led to a rejection of marriage in some cases (but not all - many hippies were actually married). Being an unwed mother, then as now, very often results in poverty. In one case any of four men on the commune might have fathered a child, but the idea that child-rearing would be a collective endeavor proved to be a fantasy. A child with four possible fathers is not that different than a child with no father. So there were some passages of the book that seem to describe women and children who were more or less abandoned by the men, though I'm sure they would not viewed it that way. For example, a woman (Lorraine, if I recall) describes baking bread, an exhausting process that begins with grinding wheat into flour. The loaves were devoured as soon as they came out of the oven. She saved a few for the children, and was scolded in no uncertain terms. There was to be no hoarding, everything was shared. But what kind of society, intentional or no, begrudges a woman for wanting to keep some bread aside to feed her kids?
There are other intense challenges. Medical emergencies, with no form of transportation to the nearest hospital. A backbreaking harvest of organic carrots yielded just $3,000, averaging out to only pennies per hour of work. Brutal Vermont winters, freeloaders, drug addiction, and crushing poverty. And since this was before the women's liberation movement, the daily drudgery of cooking, cleaning, and childcare inevitably fell to women, while men apparently had a lot more freedom. For example, the author describes then men working on construction projects until dinner, then enjoying free time afterwards, while the women were stuck washing dishes without running water and putting children to bed.
It wasn't all bad, and in fact there are many wonderful descriptions of communal life, like reading aloud by candlelight on winter evenings, or being serenaded by a strolling guitarist before bed. Construction of buildings was always a group effort, and they also built geodesic domes. Sometimes rural Vermont neighbors helped out, and developed real friendships with the hippie commune-dwellers. And even if the communes themselves didn't survive, the businesses they started did. In fact the entire farm-to-table movement, health food co-ops, and the organic foods market might be credited to the back-to-the-land movement. Some notable companies, like Tom's of Maine and Stonyfield Farms, were started by back-to-the-landers.
Ultimately the Myrtle Hill commune failed because of one bad egg and his girlfriend, who decided to grow a quarter-million dollars worth of marijuana on the collectively-owned land. This led to him constructing barbed-wire barriers around what he regarded as "his" property, and accumulating a stockpile of weapons to protect it. All of which was totally opposed to the original philosophy of Myrtle Hill. Ultimately the law got involved, and because the land was owned collectively, there was a real risk that all the commune-dwellers could be liable for the actions of one. Somehow they mananged to prevail in court, but the land was ultimately divided up into privately-owned parcels.
There's a nice coda at the end of the book that describes what happened to the major characters. One guy still lives on his Myrtle Hill parcel and several others live nearby, but many moved on to other ways of life.
"Voluntary peasants" is how they were famously described. To their parents, who lived through the deprivations of World War II and the Depression, the choice to live without running water or electricity was mystifying. Most of the communards were white, middle-class, and many were college-educated. Rejecting their parents' values, and the nuclear family, not to mention the Vietnam War, the back-to-the-landers sought a new way of life that the predicted would be embraced by everyone, out of necessity due to post-apocalyptic future, or from a sense of enlightenment. But the fact remains that the majority of them didn't even embrace it for an entire decade, much less the rest of their lives.
I can't say I blame those who bailed on the experiment. Few communes were self-sustaining; most suffered from poverty and many were forced to file Welfare claims to avoid starvation. And especially when the free love philosophy led to the inevitable children being born. It's one thing for adults to choose to live in poverty but when children are expected to do the same, it's a lot harder to justify. The rejection of the nuclear family led to a rejection of marriage in some cases (but not all - many hippies were actually married). Being an unwed mother, then as now, very often results in poverty. In one case any of four men on the commune might have fathered a child, but the idea that child-rearing would be a collective endeavor proved to be a fantasy. A child with four possible fathers is not that different than a child with no father. So there were some passages of the book that seem to describe women and children who were more or less abandoned by the men, though I'm sure they would not viewed it that way. For example, a woman (Lorraine, if I recall) describes baking bread, an exhausting process that begins with grinding wheat into flour. The loaves were devoured as soon as they came out of the oven. She saved a few for the children, and was scolded in no uncertain terms. There was to be no hoarding, everything was shared. But what kind of society, intentional or no, begrudges a woman for wanting to keep some bread aside to feed her kids?
There are other intense challenges. Medical emergencies, with no form of transportation to the nearest hospital. A backbreaking harvest of organic carrots yielded just $3,000, averaging out to only pennies per hour of work. Brutal Vermont winters, freeloaders, drug addiction, and crushing poverty. And since this was before the women's liberation movement, the daily drudgery of cooking, cleaning, and childcare inevitably fell to women, while men apparently had a lot more freedom. For example, the author describes then men working on construction projects until dinner, then enjoying free time afterwards, while the women were stuck washing dishes without running water and putting children to bed.
It wasn't all bad, and in fact there are many wonderful descriptions of communal life, like reading aloud by candlelight on winter evenings, or being serenaded by a strolling guitarist before bed. Construction of buildings was always a group effort, and they also built geodesic domes. Sometimes rural Vermont neighbors helped out, and developed real friendships with the hippie commune-dwellers. And even if the communes themselves didn't survive, the businesses they started did. In fact the entire farm-to-table movement, health food co-ops, and the organic foods market might be credited to the back-to-the-land movement. Some notable companies, like Tom's of Maine and Stonyfield Farms, were started by back-to-the-landers.
Ultimately the Myrtle Hill commune failed because of one bad egg and his girlfriend, who decided to grow a quarter-million dollars worth of marijuana on the collectively-owned land. This led to him constructing barbed-wire barriers around what he regarded as "his" property, and accumulating a stockpile of weapons to protect it. All of which was totally opposed to the original philosophy of Myrtle Hill. Ultimately the law got involved, and because the land was owned collectively, there was a real risk that all the commune-dwellers could be liable for the actions of one. Somehow they mananged to prevail in court, but the land was ultimately divided up into privately-owned parcels.
There's a nice coda at the end of the book that describes what happened to the major characters. One guy still lives on his Myrtle Hill parcel and several others live nearby, but many moved on to other ways of life.
November 3, 2024
"Unputdownable."
Although I related to this book because I remember those years, I remember the beginnings of natural foods coops, and I had many of the books she mentions (the Whole Earth Catalog, Moosewood Cookbook, Let's Eat Right to Keep Fit, Prevention, and others), aside from my personal interest in the subject, I admire how thoroughly the author collected her data--all those interviews.
Granted, she grew up as the child of one of the "back-to-the-landers" but she achieved a nice mix of detachment as well as personal involvement in her narrative.
This is a poignant story about "communards" who were aligned as to philosophy and a strong desire to escape the dominant social environment. They wanted to work hard to achieve subsistence so that they could feel proud of their integrity. (It reminded me of how, as a high school student, us girls went to the men's department of Sears to buy a real pair of blue jeans --with pockets (!) and strongly constructed, unlike the stupid girls' clothes that had been our only choice until then. THEN, we ran them through the washing machine a half dozen times to soften them up -- the people in Daloz's book would faint at the decadence and unsustainability of THAT! -- and we wore them until the hems became ragged and the knees sprang rips. And kept wearing them after that! All to feel like we had truly lived a real life...) Which explains my disconnect somewhere around the late '80s when clothing stores started selling intentionally "distressed" denim clothes. "FAKE!" my psyche screamed...
However, these young people's initial exuberance concealed from them their inexperience. Eventually, their individual wants conflicted with their original desire to be consensual and sharing. As several of the female members noted, they eventually replicated the gender roles they had tried to escape: the men engaged in tree cutting and building; the women cooked, washed the dishes, and took care of the children. Most dispiriting for one woman was the realization the once women started giving birth to children, the members seemed to splinter into the nuclear families they had specifically rejected in the beginning of their experiment.
One of the saddest elements was the fact that the Myrtle Hill farm, which was a piece of land specifically converted to a trust owned by all the participants, prevented members who wished to leave from recouping their "sweat equity," after having built geodesic domes, houses, and barns and persisted through freezing winters with no electricity or running water. When a serious conflict developed because one couple got greedy and felt they had a right to fence off "their" land, the cohesiveness of the original group was seriously compromised.
While nothing lasts forever, it is noteworthy, from the final chapter which updates the whereabouts of most of the original participants, that most of them stayed in Vermont for over 40 years and virtually everyone, including the children of the land, went into careers that upheld the original philosophy of sustainability, being close to the earth, and being compassionate toward others. So their participation in this experiment seems to have predisposed them to avoid the capitalistic, wasteful system they rejected initially.
This is truly a fascinating study of this subset of humans in the '70s in the USA. Although there was sadness in watching people's initial goals "fail," it is also a lesson that life's paths are endlessly full of potential.
Although I related to this book because I remember those years, I remember the beginnings of natural foods coops, and I had many of the books she mentions (the Whole Earth Catalog, Moosewood Cookbook, Let's Eat Right to Keep Fit, Prevention, and others), aside from my personal interest in the subject, I admire how thoroughly the author collected her data--all those interviews.
Granted, she grew up as the child of one of the "back-to-the-landers" but she achieved a nice mix of detachment as well as personal involvement in her narrative.
This is a poignant story about "communards" who were aligned as to philosophy and a strong desire to escape the dominant social environment. They wanted to work hard to achieve subsistence so that they could feel proud of their integrity. (It reminded me of how, as a high school student, us girls went to the men's department of Sears to buy a real pair of blue jeans --with pockets (!) and strongly constructed, unlike the stupid girls' clothes that had been our only choice until then. THEN, we ran them through the washing machine a half dozen times to soften them up -- the people in Daloz's book would faint at the decadence and unsustainability of THAT! -- and we wore them until the hems became ragged and the knees sprang rips. And kept wearing them after that! All to feel like we had truly lived a real life...) Which explains my disconnect somewhere around the late '80s when clothing stores started selling intentionally "distressed" denim clothes. "FAKE!" my psyche screamed...
However, these young people's initial exuberance concealed from them their inexperience. Eventually, their individual wants conflicted with their original desire to be consensual and sharing. As several of the female members noted, they eventually replicated the gender roles they had tried to escape: the men engaged in tree cutting and building; the women cooked, washed the dishes, and took care of the children. Most dispiriting for one woman was the realization the once women started giving birth to children, the members seemed to splinter into the nuclear families they had specifically rejected in the beginning of their experiment.
One of the saddest elements was the fact that the Myrtle Hill farm, which was a piece of land specifically converted to a trust owned by all the participants, prevented members who wished to leave from recouping their "sweat equity," after having built geodesic domes, houses, and barns and persisted through freezing winters with no electricity or running water. When a serious conflict developed because one couple got greedy and felt they had a right to fence off "their" land, the cohesiveness of the original group was seriously compromised.
While nothing lasts forever, it is noteworthy, from the final chapter which updates the whereabouts of most of the original participants, that most of them stayed in Vermont for over 40 years and virtually everyone, including the children of the land, went into careers that upheld the original philosophy of sustainability, being close to the earth, and being compassionate toward others. So their participation in this experiment seems to have predisposed them to avoid the capitalistic, wasteful system they rejected initially.
This is truly a fascinating study of this subset of humans in the '70s in the USA. Although there was sadness in watching people's initial goals "fail," it is also a lesson that life's paths are endlessly full of potential.
September 18, 2025
This is a fantastic book - among the most thought provoking I've ever read. The author was really effective in telling the story of a national movement and all the key players (even tying in historical communes from previous generations like the one Louisa May Alcott belonged to) - and tying it to individual stories of Back to the Landers, idealistic kids on the adventures of their lifetimes that were easy to relate to.
This book got me thinking so much about American life that I actually took notes on some of the points that really hit home. Pasted below (with spoilers):
Focus for the group energy and clear set of expectations for each group member were the most important factor of determining whether a commune survived or failed. The hard drudgery of day-to-day chores that kept the communes alive did not capture the group's attention versus heroic work like building buildings.
There was an irony in many of the affluent kids rejecting things like modern medicine, running water and plumbing, when many of their rural neighbors had never been able to have these things. And also the authors parents, who served in the Peace Corps, and saw people in Third World countries who literally would have given anything to have what the communards were rejecting.
Dynamic between self interest and group interest. Anyone being free to do whatever they wanted meant that some people had to do all the work, leading to resentment
Going back to the land was actually an incredible amount of work. Whereas the hippies idealized it as living free off the land.
Weird how quickly people fell into gender roles - with women focused on cooking and childbirth. They moved to the country to reject the lives their parents lived but then in some ways became them.
Just got too hard living without privacy, without heat, without enough food.
They freed themselves from 9-5 work world but always living close to poverty was exhausting. Money is freedom. Poverty is lack of control.
People who grew up in the city not realizing the risk of germs and infection.
Ironic that people who started the communes as a rebuke of capitalism fell into many small entrepreneurial businesses - health food store, ad circular, Ben and Jerry's etc. Capitalism is what saved them and they essentially became super capitalists.
In stripping away societal norms and expectations they also got rid of protections that allow people to navigate bad situations.
This book got me thinking so much about American life that I actually took notes on some of the points that really hit home. Pasted below (with spoilers):
Focus for the group energy and clear set of expectations for each group member were the most important factor of determining whether a commune survived or failed. The hard drudgery of day-to-day chores that kept the communes alive did not capture the group's attention versus heroic work like building buildings.
There was an irony in many of the affluent kids rejecting things like modern medicine, running water and plumbing, when many of their rural neighbors had never been able to have these things. And also the authors parents, who served in the Peace Corps, and saw people in Third World countries who literally would have given anything to have what the communards were rejecting.
Dynamic between self interest and group interest. Anyone being free to do whatever they wanted meant that some people had to do all the work, leading to resentment
Going back to the land was actually an incredible amount of work. Whereas the hippies idealized it as living free off the land.
Weird how quickly people fell into gender roles - with women focused on cooking and childbirth. They moved to the country to reject the lives their parents lived but then in some ways became them.
Just got too hard living without privacy, without heat, without enough food.
They freed themselves from 9-5 work world but always living close to poverty was exhausting. Money is freedom. Poverty is lack of control.
People who grew up in the city not realizing the risk of germs and infection.
Ironic that people who started the communes as a rebuke of capitalism fell into many small entrepreneurial businesses - health food store, ad circular, Ben and Jerry's etc. Capitalism is what saved them and they essentially became super capitalists.
In stripping away societal norms and expectations they also got rid of protections that allow people to navigate bad situations.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 19, 2018
I’ve never read a book about the place where I live, featuring people I know... and many whom I’m sure I’ve met, not even realizing their role in the recent past that has made our community what it is. At first the scattered plot and large number of characters was confusing but eventually the tales of different communes and communards become easier to follow. I appreciated how Daloz wove her own story into the book.
We Are As Gods takes place in nearby Glover, VT in the 1970s as the back-to-the-land movement was in full swing. The book tackles the joys, realities, and pitfalls of life on a commune, the narcissistic failings of middle class dreamers, and the dedicated homesteaders of the ‘70s in rural VT. I learned a great deal about how this era has shaped current political events and our food system. I learned a lot about how and why VT is the way it is today and saw the same idealism in these young people that I saw in myself. So much is different and yet, so much is so similar. (Like the landscape... Glover was and is awe inspiringly beautiful.)
What I’m really taking away from this book is a greater interest in the critique of “hippie” life, appreciation for creativity in housing and land tenure, and lessons learned about how to build self-sufficiency and sustainable, profitable, eco-conscious community food systems.
We Are As Gods takes place in nearby Glover, VT in the 1970s as the back-to-the-land movement was in full swing. The book tackles the joys, realities, and pitfalls of life on a commune, the narcissistic failings of middle class dreamers, and the dedicated homesteaders of the ‘70s in rural VT. I learned a great deal about how this era has shaped current political events and our food system. I learned a lot about how and why VT is the way it is today and saw the same idealism in these young people that I saw in myself. So much is different and yet, so much is so similar. (Like the landscape... Glover was and is awe inspiringly beautiful.)
What I’m really taking away from this book is a greater interest in the critique of “hippie” life, appreciation for creativity in housing and land tenure, and lessons learned about how to build self-sufficiency and sustainable, profitable, eco-conscious community food systems.
May 13, 2019
There's a genre of stories I call "who screwed who in '72?". /We Are As Gods/ fits within this genre, but also transcends it. The importance of communal, non-violent, counter-cultural life cannot be under-estimated, both in terms of shaping society, but also as a factor in the violent reaction that arose immediately to repress such experimentation and remains the dominant political force in the United States.
One quote that resonated with me is, "Every last leaf and crumb of today's . . . organic food industry owes its existence in part to the inexperienced, idealistics, exurbanite farmers of the 1970s, many of whom hung on through the '80s and '90s, refining their practices, organizing themselves, and developing the distribution systems that have fed today's seemingly insatiable demand for organic products."
The story is told by a child of the movement, which makes it both compelling and off-putting. The frequent personal asides—entertaining as they were—and the entrance and exit of numerous various characters in the interest of historical accuracy rather than the creation of composites keeps it from being both a work of fiction and an easy read.
At the end of the day, the author is left at the mercy of her interview subjects and whatever documentation she can unearth. We will never know who screwed who in '72.
One quote that resonated with me is, "Every last leaf and crumb of today's . . . organic food industry owes its existence in part to the inexperienced, idealistics, exurbanite farmers of the 1970s, many of whom hung on through the '80s and '90s, refining their practices, organizing themselves, and developing the distribution systems that have fed today's seemingly insatiable demand for organic products."
The story is told by a child of the movement, which makes it both compelling and off-putting. The frequent personal asides—entertaining as they were—and the entrance and exit of numerous various characters in the interest of historical accuracy rather than the creation of composites keeps it from being both a work of fiction and an easy read.
At the end of the day, the author is left at the mercy of her interview subjects and whatever documentation she can unearth. We will never know who screwed who in '72.
May 6, 2017
I didn't live this life, but I know people who did, and I know people who live very near where this particular commune was, so it was very compelling for me to read about it. Through the lens of one commune, located in northern Vermont, the author sheds light on the whole back-to-the-land movement in the 1970's in the U.S. Which was the largest city to country demographic shift in our history. She does a really good job of describing the people involved and also describing the conditions that they lived in, and analyzing what they were doing. Mostly privileged white young adults who could withstand embracing a simple life and poverty. They were idealistic and believed in some things - like sharing property in common, like free love, that were difficult to sustain in the long run.
I was very glad that in the end she told us what these people went on to do in their lives much later.
Very well written and well paced.
She herself is the daughter of two "back to the landers" who were neighbors of the folks in the commune.
I was very glad that in the end she told us what these people went on to do in their lives much later.
Very well written and well paced.
She herself is the daughter of two "back to the landers" who were neighbors of the folks in the commune.
May 8, 2020
This is a compelling, heartfelt history of a movement (of sorts -- for all that many of its exponents didn't realise they were part of one). Despite the author's familial proximity to the back-to-the-landers it documents, the book's even-handed, declining to romanticise but conveying the sense of the important contribution communards made to contemporary culture. It didn't leave me wanting to join a commune, but did make me want to start an organic allotment. If there's a criticism, it's perhaps of the punches slightly pulled when the author might truly have confronted the movement's sexism and dearth of non-white participants. The former gets a somewhat tardy exploration, but without the incisive engagement the author gives to the question of class. The latter is more or less passed over in silence, a quoted Nina Simone left to observe that black Americans didn't pitch up at most communes. Why is not explored. That omission aside, the book is spellbinding, and by the final chapter's "where are they now" rollcall of its dramatis personae -- itself a Seventies throwback as a trope -- I was savouring every sentence, sad that it had to end.
May 20, 2025
An interesting book about a period of time (the early 70s) I dimly recall from my childhood (I was 10 or 12 at the time) and a group of people I'd only recently come to think about (the 'back to the land' hippies). My youngest daughter lived in central (which is actually very far North) Maine for three years, and in conversation talked of her friends, now in their 70s, who'd moved up & built their homes and grown their own food...these homesteaders are part of the movement chronicled in this book.
I thought it an interesting topic, and a well-researched look at the dynamics of why young people took the step to 'go back to the land' and how the communal living experience played out. The author is certainly sympathetic to a group who it'd be easy, especially now, to ridicule for so many reasons. She doesn't (ridicule) and even though there are many idealistic failings, I had a sense of optimism as I finished. For human striving for a better and more idealistic way of living.
And yes, this one's purchased for my daughter's birthday present...
I thought it an interesting topic, and a well-researched look at the dynamics of why young people took the step to 'go back to the land' and how the communal living experience played out. The author is certainly sympathetic to a group who it'd be easy, especially now, to ridicule for so many reasons. She doesn't (ridicule) and even though there are many idealistic failings, I had a sense of optimism as I finished. For human striving for a better and more idealistic way of living.
And yes, this one's purchased for my daughter's birthday present...
July 14, 2021
The prologue's description of late winter / early spring in Vermont made me exceptionally homesick, and it was amazing to read the back-stories on institutions and families I knew a bit about growing up there. This is a delightfully-written "people are people, no matter the circumstances" book and has a lot of sage observation about how groups and ideas go through phases. The capstone commentary on what bits of communal culture survive in my own "children of the 80s" generation were insightful. The entire book has a light touch and a pleasant breeze blowing through it.
August 2, 2022
Absolutely fantastic, highly recommend. I loved how the author looked at the particular via the Myrtle Hill Commune and via her own parents' back-to-the-land experience, but also looked at the bigger picture via the context of American history far past and in the time of the 1970s. It all worked together to make just the right reading magic.
This book also made me wonder if maybe this back-to-the-land movement explains why the dominant colors of the 1970s were mustard yellow, carrot orange, and every shade of brown imaginable? Just a thought.
This book also made me wonder if maybe this back-to-the-land movement explains why the dominant colors of the 1970s were mustard yellow, carrot orange, and every shade of brown imaginable? Just a thought.
June 11, 2017
Fascinating History
A huge movement that I personally missed but find so interesting is laid out with what I suspect is mostly realism coupled with pleasant memories. Enormously interesting research and detail, and brings to life an era that greatly influences us today. Some experiments evolve and the exurban movement is one. Recommend and the lessons learned will stay with you --
A huge movement that I personally missed but find so interesting is laid out with what I suspect is mostly realism coupled with pleasant memories. Enormously interesting research and detail, and brings to life an era that greatly influences us today. Some experiments evolve and the exurban movement is one. Recommend and the lessons learned will stay with you --
May 22, 2017
The writing is excellent, both as a story and as an insight into what led people to commit so deeply to the back to the land idea, to the lessons they learned, and how it affected their lives afterword. But, I think, you have to be interested in the back to the land idea, or in the evolution of rural Vermont, to fully appreciate the book.
April 7, 2019
This is one of two books I have recently read about Vermont back-to-the-landers (The other being Yvonne Daley's Going Up the Country), and I relished both of them, with their deep dive of what went on in Vermont in the late 60s and early 70s when a distinct counterculture changed the state and also influenced out larger society as well.
August 1, 2019
Very relaxing read about hippie communes and drew some interesting links between the 'Back to the Land' movement and its impact on our society today. I thought this was a very honest look at Utopian movements and makes the reader wonder if mainstream society is really so bad after all. Very good summer time reading.
November 10, 2021
Really well balanced and engrossing book about the back to the land movement of the 70s.
Lots of historical context but also lovely character studies and development of those featured. As a reader I could vividly picture the conditions and I felt I really got to know the people, even those on the periphery of the main focus.
Lots of historical context but also lovely character studies and development of those featured. As a reader I could vividly picture the conditions and I felt I really got to know the people, even those on the periphery of the main focus.
March 4, 2023
I really enjoyed this book: the history of the commune movement, the personal success and failure (but I shouldn’t call it that), the group dynamics and general philosophy. A must read for someone who is tempted to start their own back-to-the land movement to understand what obstacles they might encounter. Super easy and fast read is always a treat
October 5, 2023
This book almost reads like a novel but is clearly a drawn from a series of interviews Daloz had with people. We Are As Gods chronicles the several attempts to build communes in Vermont in the 1970s. It provides a wonderful perspective on a wider national movement as Americans tried to live out the ideals expressed during the cultural ferment of the 1960s. I myself live in Vermont, and this book provides a great explanation of the origins of the state's current left-leaning/hippy political culture.
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